its dangerous to go alone. here, take these bilbies

BIG ROUNDS

I've enlisted the help of Caine (and Jax) to help spread the word that on March 20th starting at 9am AEST the Save the Bilby Fund, is having all donations made that day matched!

Please donate if you can! Every little bit helps, in fact USD is worth more in AUD so even a small amount in USD is giving more than you think! And that's not even counting the matched donations for that day.

I'll be doing some more bilby related art as the day approaches to help remind everyone and spread the word. Today we're starting with bilbifying Jax again.

bibly sweep

This Tiktok sound was so perfect I had to use it.

A little Easter bilby by Haigh's, found secondhand by my Australian friend. I have another Easter bilby from this chocolate company, but not one with a cute little dungaree outfit!

The platypus Yowie figure (in its capsule) was stashed in the pocket on arrival, so that just stays there now.

A bilby! A nocturnal marsupial from Australia. They build burrows throughout their territory, which provides shelter them and for other species, and which may help them stay safe through bush fires. As marsupials, they keep their young in pouches through their development, but their pouches are reversed! The entry to the pouch is at the bottom, rather than the top. This helps keep dirt from getting into their pouch while burrowing! I just think they’re neat. :-)

[ID: an illustration of a bilby on a light gold background with banksia flowers and leaves arranged above it. The bilby is walking to the left, in profile. End.]

Greater Bilby (Macrotis lagotis), family Tylacomyidae, found in NW Australia

photograph by Bernard DuPont

Australian mini animals by bocchetta x

The lesser bilby (Macrotis leucura), less degradingly known as the yallara by the Wangkangurru people, is one of Australia's many many obscure recently extinct mammals. It was last seen alive by western observers in 1931, although based on First Nations knowledge (and a skull found under an eagle's nest) it appears to certainly have survived at least into the 1960s.

(Image credit: Oldfield Thomas’ Catalogue of the Monotremes and Marsupials in the British Museum)

The yallara was smaller and less colourful than the living greater bilby (M. lagotis), hence its description of as the "lesser" of the two species, but what it lacked in stature it made up for in ferocity. Unlike its larger cousin, the yallara was reportedly very aggressive and feisty, with Hedley Finlayson (one of the few scientists to observe the species in life, and the last) writing that they: "...completely belied their delicate appearance by proving themselves fierce and intractable, and repulsed the most tactful attempts to handle them by repeated savage snapping bites and harsh hissing sounds, and one member of the party, who was persistent in his intentions, received a gash in the hand three quarters of an inch long from the canines of a male."

Although few observations of the species were made in life and much of their ecology remains a mystery, they may also have been more carnivorous than the living greater bilby. Investigations of stomach contents found large quantities of skin and fur from rodents, with only limited seeds and no insect fragments having been ingested. However, this information only comes from a small sample of individuals, so whether or not the yallara was the most predatory of all modern bandicoots will likely remain uncertain. They also differed in behaviour from greater bilbies by always blocking the entrance to their burrow after entering.

The species was only observed by Europeans in the harsh deserts of north-eastern South Australia and the south-east of the Northern Territory, but testimony from Aboriginal peoples indicates it also extended further west into the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts of Western Australia. Being reported as common when last observed by Finlayson in the 1930s, its decline and extinction appears to have occurred entirely unobserved by western eyes, but it is likely that they were a victim of the usual troubles - invasive species and changing fire regimes.

Parsley - any pronouns Jellycat bashful bunny to custom bashful bilby Found the bunny at a charity store for $2 and then customised them to be a bilby by lengthening the snoot, shortening and perking up the ears, moving the eyes and making a new tail. Inspired by @thylacines-toybox's lovely bashful thylacine customs!

Greater bilby By: W. S. Berridge From: The Book of the Animal Kingdom 1910

Australia's native wildlife have been hit incredibly hard by invasive species introduced by Europeans, such as red foxes, rabbits, domestic cats, and rats. In fact, the lesser bilby won't be getting reintroduced with its greater counterpart because the lesser species went extinct in the 1950s due to cat and fox predation. This makes the greater bilby the very last species in its genus.

While the death of any wild animal may be saddening, especially one as charismatic as a red fox, the only way this reintroduction area would have been safe for the bilbies released there would be if all the foxes were removed. And it's heartening to think how these native omnivores will be able to thrive and have a better chance of surviving well into the future, instead of being wiped out by predators that never should have been there in the first place.

He's sittin' with the bilbies now.

i watched the 9 Lives of Fritz the Cat and was inspired to make fritz-sonas, in both chick and dude versions

Just a little bilby sewing her dress. All hand embroidered animation. This was really fun, I was playing around with different textures, achieved through different stitches and fabric for the dress. I also love having the actual sewing needle in there.

When people outside of Australia see this, they usually think this character is a mouse. It’s a bilby! A super cute Australian mammal:

It’s definitely not mouse sized the way that mine is in my animation; that’s just some artistic license.